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The Chin Hair Story

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I have been richly blessed in my heritage. I am descended from wonderful people, and I have received talents and attributes from them that I appreciate. But I inherited one thing I wish I could give back … chin hair.

I didn’t know I had this particular problem until one day that will live forever in my memory. I had been married for about three weeks. We lived in a cute little apartment and the bathroom faced north, and so it had really good light. One morning, I was in there putting on my makeup. I tilted my head back while smoothing on lotion, and I saw it in that aforementioned really good light. A chin hair. And it wasn’t just any chin hair … it was, honestly, about an inch long, just hanging there. I shrieked, grabbed some tweezers, and yanked that bad boy out of there.

My husband came to the bathroom door. “What’s the matter?”

“I had an inch-long chin hair!” I said, completely embarrassed and mortified and aghast.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, shrugging.

“What? You knew about it?”

“Yeah, I saw it right before we got engaged.”

Okay, two things about that.

First of all, that he would continue dating me, and propose to me, and then go through with marrying me, knowing that he was marrying a woman with a propensity toward chin hair … that’s so totally sweet and romantic, I can hardly stand it. But that’s not what I focused on.

“You knew this whole time, and you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

Again, that’s very sweet, and romantic, and wonderful. But that’s not what I focused on.

“You mean you let me go through our wedding day with this … thing … hanging off me? How many people knew about it?”

I started calling my sisters and my friends and my mom and anyone else I could think of. None of them had seen the chin hair—well, if they had, they would have told me. I breathed a sigh of relief that they hadn’t spent my entire wedding day staring at my chin.

And now, my husband and I have a weekly ritual, where he examines my chin and pulls out any little hairs I didn’t see for myself. It does remind me of gorillas, living in the forest and picking fleas off each other. But in its own gorilla-like way, it’s romantic, and I have to love this man even more, this man who loved me enough to marry me, even with an inch-long chin hair.